Flame

“ In the frantic hurry and agitation of the moment, it never struck me that I might let out the flame instead of letting in the air. I struck at the skylight, and battered in the cracked, loosened glass at a blow. The fire leaped out like a wild beast from its lair. ”

“ Rising into the air with showers of sparks, and rolling one above the other, were sheets of flame, lighting the atmosphere for miles round, and driving clouds of smoke in the direction where he stood. The shouts grew louder as new voices swelled the rear, and he could hear the cry of Fire mingled with the ringing of an alarm-bell, the fall of heavy bodies, and the crackling of flames as they twined round some new obstacle, and shot aloft as though refreshed by food. ”

“ Those moving, wavering fires, now rushing up in sheaves of flame, now falling into a sullen glow burnt on the sides of solid mountains, but her fiery thoughts, that sent a blaze into her cheek and eye, and then died into a slow heat, moved over tossing billows of emotion. ”

“ But the fire is not extinguished, will not be extinguished, can not be extinguished. Gradually the wet and green logs, the brushwood, the peat will all be consumed, and the amber golden flame will become purer, steadier, more enduring and more beautiful than ever. ”

“ So the Holy Ghost hovers among the flames, from the red to the blue and the black to the yellow, putting brand to brand and flame to flame, as the wind changes, and life travels in flame from the unseen to the unseen, men will never know how or why. ”

“ And concerning this flame I was not overmuch astonished in my Reason; for it had seemed to me as I drew anigh, that the fire and the sound should be made by the roaring and whistling of a burning gas that did issue forth among the rocks. ”

“ The globe of the lamp appeared of a reddish hue, and the flame, brightening before it expired, threw out the last flickerings which in an inanimate object have been so often compared with the convulsions of a human creature in its final agonies. ”

“ The flame is burning yet—in a few hearts still in the flesh, and in countless glorified spirits before the throne. There is not enough wind, loosed or unloosed, in the vast caverns of the universe to blow out that flame, nor enough blackness in the untenanted halls of space to swallow up its light! ”

“ How the sparks mount and twinkle and disappear like tropical fireflies, and all the leaves murmur, and clap their hands! Some of the sparks do not go out: we see them flaming in the sky when the flame of the fire has died down. ”

“ What does it matter, whether the fire be struck from flint and steel, nourished with care into a flame, slowly communicated to the dark wick, or whether swiftly the radiant power of light and warmth passes from a kindred power, and shines at once the beacon and the hope. ”

“ Thou art about to light a flame which the waves of ocean can not extinguish. The flame will soon light half Europe; it may perhaps reach the wood of thrones. Burn slowly, precious flame! The winds which fan thee are violent and fearful; they are love and hatred. ”

“ Men in a sort of ecstasy threw on more of the heavy, resinous wood, that almost exploded into flame. Rocks cracked and exploded like guns. Everybody drew back from that roaring tree of flame, which rose ever higher and higher, its dark smoke and its sparks unfolding into heaven. ”

“ How like to a fire was a man's heart! The first young fitful leapings, the sudden, fierce, mastering heat, the long, steady sober burning, and then—that last flaming-up, that clutch back at its own vanished youth, the final eager flight of flame, before the ashes wintered it to nothing! ”

“ As children, many of us have played with it; some of us have seen an outbreak of fire. First a small tongue-like flame appears; it grows into a devastating fury of heat. We out here in the field have seen more than enough of it. ”

“ Behold him—a happy young man. Look how brightly the candle burns! The icy wind of the limitless sky cannot disturb, or in the slightest deflect the movement of the flame. Radiantly and brightly burns the candle. ”

“ Far away in the great west, from the palpitating flame in which the sun had set, spread a vast cloud of deepening crimson that slowly broadened, through the air and over the hills, clothing peak after peak with rose-gold, its misty glow shimmering over the whole earth, till every crag, every tree-top, every eagle’s wing, was transcended with the light. ”

“ Through flame and smoke that dauntless heart Responded firmly still, Unawed, though face to face with death,— "With God's good help I will!" The flames approach with giant strides, They scorch his hand and brow; One arm, disabled, seeks his side, Ah! ”

“ But what magic there is in a spark of light! The first burst of flame drives all the sad lonesome feelings away, and the blaze of the increasing fire creates positively a home-feeling in the breast. The reason of this is plain enough. ”

“ Who wants to be a flame, doomed to be blown out by the same gust of wind that has first fanned it to its very brightest? If you are not a flame you cannot, of course, be blown out. Gusts no longer shake you. ”

“ Yes it is a flame, steady, bright, and pure; a flame which lights up and warms, and shines through the heart into which it has entered, and then falls on other hearts, and the more light and warmth it gives to others, the brighter and stronger it burns in our breast. ”

“ Great circles of flame were seen everywhere in the woods, and these dazzling fire-necklaces grew larger and larger, twined together, became entangled, twisted about, sparkled, crackled,—of all the sights I ever saw I think this was the most curious! ”

“ High, still, white flames, like sacrificial flames, like altar flames, high in the sky, the lofty sky, the wide sky; the wide expanse full of white flame, still, white, ascending, purifying flames, refined and clear, over the whole wide expanse, the wide refining expanse. . . . Once more she asked the pale shades, who swarmed about between the flames, hand in hand, who swayed continually to and fro between the flames:
“Spirits in the white flames, pure white, in the white flames, where shall I find the Jewel for Emeralda?” ”

“ Those that come on while the juices of the heart remain, seize upon the body of the heart, and hence the febrile flame is kindled, like the flame of a lamp from its wick. This is one of the modes of formation. ”

“ Mine must be an inward flame, that warms though it cannot shine; a fire, like the sacred Chaldean fire, that must never go out; a perpetual spring, flowing up without ceasing, to meet the unceasing need. ”

“ The beautiful satin bark at once kindled into a soft, pure, but brilliant flame, something like that of naphtha. There is no other wood flame so rich, and it leaps up in a joyous, spiritual way, as if glad to burn for the sake of burning. ”

“ Light the fire from a light or from another fire or with a match. This is the shortest and simplest act in fire making, but the most extraordinary. It would take some one wiser than three philosophers, four scientists and twelve owls to tell you what the flame is which springs up on the hearth. A springing flame has remained through all time such a mystery and wonder, that the poet, the musician and the devotee have woven it into rhythm, and music, and worship—and what is more, a boy and a fox terrier will keep still before it for half an hour. ”

“ Within us burns that Flame, and before Its altar the lower man must bow, a faithful servant of the Higher. When he serves the Flame he grows, and the light grows until he takes his place with the true Initiates of the universe, those who have given all to the Infinite, in the name of the Flame within. ”

“ Vainly should we endeavour to describe the majestic and terrific spectacle which the fire presents, as it unfolds its wings under its metallic vaults, soon filled with vast volumes of smoke and flame. ”

“ No earthly hands kindled that fire. From its sheeted flame and wreaths of sulphurous smoke glares out upon thee the eye of that enemy who was a murderer from the beginninsr. It is a fire that burns to the lowest hell! ”

“ VIII And you as well must die, beloved dust, And all your beauty stand you in no stead; This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head, This body of flame and steel, before the gust Of Death, or under his autumnal frost, Shall be as any leaf, be no less dead Than the first leaf that fell,—this wonder fled. ”

“ I would as soon have an Englishman without side-whiskers as a fire without a big backlog; and I would rather have no fire than one that required no tending,—one of dead wood that could not sing again the imprisoned songs of the forest, or give out in brilliant scintillations the sunshine it absorbed in its growth. Flame is an ethereal sprite, and the spice of danger in it gives zest to the care of the hearth-fire. ”

“ You must not imagine, because you see these tongues all at once, that the flame is of this particular shape. A flame of that shape is never so at any one time. Never is a body of flame, like that which you just saw rising from the ball, of the shape it appears to you. ”

“ As Fire in the Rig Veda is not only the altar-fire, but also common, every-day fire, so, too, in the epic this god is the material flame, and as such even performs his greatest deeds for his worshippers. ”

“ Let us make ourselves into flames, and the flame which burns up the other shall be the victor. I will make myself into a red [Pg 80] flame, and do you make yourself into a bluish one.’ ‘Not so!’ interrupted the seer; ‘you make yourself into a bluish flame, and I will make myself into a red one.’ The king agreed to this also. They went into the road to the bridge, and, changing themselves into flames, began to burn each other unmercifully. Long did they burn each other, but nothing came of it. ”

“ Yet also when a many-branched tree, Beaten by winds, writhes swaying to and fro, Pressing 'gainst branches of a neighbour tree, There by the power of mighty rub and rub Is fire engendered; and at times out-flares The scorching heat of flame, when boughs do chafe Against the trunks. And of these causes, either May well have given to mortal men the fire. Next, food to cook and soften in the flame The sun instructed, since so oft they saw How objects mellowed, when subdued by warmth And by the raining blows of fiery beams, Through all the fields. ”

“ Love, fame, ambition, avarice—'tis the same— Each idle, and all ill, and none the worst— For all are meteors with a different name, And death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. ”

“ The body, sluggish, aged, cold—the embers left from earlier fires, The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again; ”

“ We must pass like smoke or live within the spirit's fire;
For we can no more than smoke unto the flame return
If our thought has changed to dream, our will unto desire,
As smoke we vanish though the fire may burn. ”

“ Even as a flame unfed, which runs to waste With its own flickering, or a sword laid by, Which eats into itself, and rusts ingloriously. ”

“ The emblem of fire is selected to express the work of the Spirit of God, by reason of its leaping, triumphant, transforming energy. See, for instance, how, when you kindle a pile of dead green-wood, the tongues of fire spring from point to point until they have conquered the whole mass, and turned it all into a ruddy likeness of the parent flame. ”

“ The stark and unexpected miracle of a night fades out with the lingering death of the last stars and the premature birth of the first newsboys. The flame retreats to some remote and platonic fire; the white heat has gone from the iron and the glow from the coal. ”

“ No vivacious Bacchanalian flame leaped out of the pressed grape of Monsieur Defarge: but, a smouldering fire that burnt in the dark, lay hidden in the dregs of it. ”

“ The flame of fire struck by the air is thereby lengthened. (Note. In the center of the body is the seat of fire, like heated gold. In men it is triangular, in quadrupeds square, in birds circular. There is a long thin flame in this fire. It is gastric fire.) ”

“ Who does not know that the flame emits rays into her eyes, and spreads from these as centres into the countenance, and also descends into the breast, and sets the heart on fire, and thereby affects (a youth) , just as a fire with its heat and light affects a person standing near it? ”

“ Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness. ”

“ Actual observation must also have suggested to him his central doctrine, that Fire is the one permanent substance, of which all visible things are passing phases. In combustion we see things change utterly, while their flame and heat rise up into the air and vanish. ”